Small steps or a giant leap?

Every CIO is familiar with incremental IT. Sometimes it happens because there isn't enough money in the budget to do an overall change. Sometimes it happens because the CIO wants to transition slowly to a new way of operating. Yet architected IT is really the only way to get the best value out of your technology investment and a radical change may be the only way to really make over your system.

That's the thinking of Randy Mott, CIO at HP. He has already has made his reputation as the engineer of Wal-Mart's data warehouse and is working to transform Hewlett-Packard's new approach to its internal IT system. But don't envy him too quickly. His job is enormous. He, along with HP's CEO, has set a number of hard-to-reach goals for IT: consolidating 85 HP data centers worldwide down to six in the United States; cutting 6,000 legacy applications down to 1,500 and shrinking the 19,000 strong IT workforce down to 8,000.

This is a job for the hardy and brave, not for anyone without a backbone. The first step, Mott recently told Information Week, is realizing that a radical change in the IT structure is the only way to achieve lasting results. Are you a CIO willing to take a risk? Remember that making changes incrementally carries the potential for great losses. And doing things in a big sweeping manner takes a huge commitment and nerves of steel. Where are you these days? Are you a leader or a follower? -Judi